Head of Mainstream News Group: “The Government May Love This [Destruction of the Free Press]. I Suspect That They Do. But Beware The Government That Loves Secrecy Too Much”

Attack on the Press

What I learned from our journalists should alarm everyone in this room and I think should alarm everyone in this country. The actions of the DOJ against AP [the Department of Justice bugging AP’s phones] are already having an impact beyond the specifics of this particular case.

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Some of our longtime trusted sources have become nervous and anxious about talking to us, even about stories that aren’t about national security. In some cases, government employees that we once checked in with regularly will no longer speak to us by phone, and some are reluctant to meet in person.

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I can tell you that this chilling effect is not just at AP, it’s happening at other news organizations as well. Journalists from other news organizations have personally told me it has intimidated sources from speaking to them.

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The government may love this. I suspect that they do. But beware the government that loves secrecy too much.

[Department of Justice investigators] used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal e-mails.

As we traveled the public hallways of the building – watched over by security cameras – an armed uniformed police officer with the Federal Protective Service followed us. We were looking for a particular office—of someone who would not want to be seen talking to reporters–but chose to bypass it because of our official babysitter.

Asked why we were being escorted in a public building, the officer identified himself as Insp. Mike Finkelstein and said he was only trying to make sure that the newsmen were not a “nuisance.” He brushed aside further questions. The cop said a supervisor would call to explain.

One of the reporters wanted to know if the act of following the journalists was an effort intended to scare off any federal employee who might have considered speaking to the press. That’s sure what it looked like; and, even if that wasn’t the goal, it was the effect.

As of Friday night, no supervisor had called back.

After ABC News phoned and e-mailed the spokespeople in Washington repeatedly for more than 24 hours, a low-level staffer with Homeland Security finally responded. “After review by a supervisor, it was determined that the inspector acted according to proper security procedures and that no improper conduct occurred,” the spokesman said.

The Bush White House worked hard to smear CIA officers, bloggers and anyone else who criticized the Iraq war

After Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, journalist Naomi Wolf, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and others sued the government to enjoin the NDAA’s allowance of the indefinite detention of Americans – the judge asked the government attorneys 5 times whether journalists like Hedges could be indefinitely detained simply for interviewing and then writing about bad guys. The government refusedto promise that journalists like Hedges won’t be thrown in a dungeon for the rest of their lives without any right to talk to a judge

In an effort to protect Bank of America from the threatened Wikileaks expose of the bank’s wrongdoing, the Department of Justice told Bank of America to a hire a specific hardball-playing law firm to assemble a team to take down WikiLeaks (and see this).

But – whatever you think of Wikileaks – that was the canary in the coal mine in terms of going after reporters. Specifically, former attorney general Mukasey said the U.S. should prosecute Assange because it’s “easier” than prosecuting the New York Times.

The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty [says that “The alternative to ‘conspiring’ with leakers to get information: Just writing what the government tells you.”]

That, of course, is precisely the point of the unprecedented Obama war on whistleblowers and press freedoms: to ensure that the only information the public can get is information that the Obama administration wants it to have. That’s why Obama’s one-side games with secrecy – we’ll prolifically leak when it glorifies the president and severely punish all other kinds – is designed to construct the classic propaganda model. And it’s good to see journalists finally speaking out in genuine outrage and concern about all of this.

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Here’s an amazing and revealing fact: after Richard Nixon lost the right to exercise prior restraint over the New York Times’ publication of the Pentagon Papers, he was desperate to punish and prosecute the responsible NYT reporter, Neil Sheehan. Thus, recounted the NYT’s lawyer at the time, James Goodale, Nixon concocted a theory:

“Nixon convened a grand jury to indict the New York Times and its reporter, Neil Sheehan, for conspiracy to commit espionage . . . .The government’s ‘conspiracy’ theory centered around how Sheehan got the Pentagon Papers in the first place. While Daniel Ellsberg had his own copy stored in his apartment in Cambridge, the government believed Ellsberg had given part of the papers to anti-war activists. It apparently theorized further that the activists had talked to Sheehan about publication in the Times, all of which it believed amounted to a conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act.”

[Numerous] FBI officers held a gun to Binney’s head as he stepped naked from the shower. He watched with his wife and youngest son as the FBI ransacked their home. Later Binney was separated from the rest of his family, and FBI officials pressured him to implicate one of the other complainants in criminal activity. During the raid, Binney attempted to report to FBI officials the crimes he had witnessed at NSA, in particular the NSA’s violation of the constitutional rights of all Americans. However, the FBI wasn’t interested in these disclosures. Instead, FBI officials seized Binney’s private computer, which to this day has not been returned despite the fact that he has not been charged with a crime.

The government of the United States has rewritten the fundamental understanding between it and We, the People. It did so in secret, and the new version removes sovereignty from We, the People and puts it in the hands of the executive.

This has been a coup. Changing sovereignty without agreement is Treason.

This government has no legitimacy : Congress no longer represents We, The People, it represents $ and the government’s bureaucracies. The Executive no longer follows the Constitution in any important respect, just enough to maintain the facade.

The US government is now the most powerful entity in human history. It has the information needed to blackmail many people around the world, and undoubtedly uses this power.

And both parties are fully supportive of these changes.

We cannot allow secrecy in any government function. This requires that we become the neutral nation that we were intended to be.

Abolish NSA, CIA, FBI and the Department of Justice (mostly useful for writing memos trashing the Constitution). End the wars, bring the troops home, abolish the Africa Command, the US Command. Repeal all of the treaties that allow NATO, SETO, …

If We, The People don’t get very aggressive and very passionate about this, they win.

If We, The People allow ourselves to be divided by abortion, guns, … all of the many issues that don’t matter so much, we will be treated as every other tyrannized population in history.

Gulag, here we come.

lew

I just filed a withholding form that will reduce the income taxes withheld from my paycheck to $0.

I will not pay my taxes if this government is legitimate by 15 April, 2014. I will not contribute to a government intent on oppressing me and my family.

I suggest everyone change their withholding so they can do likewise. Nothing threatens gov like no taxes.

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